About two weeks ago, a rumour arose that newer Switch units and the Switch Lite were hacked by Team Xecuter and now, more information has been made available hinting that a release may not be too far off. In this article, we’ll be looking at recent developments on this story together with a look at a highly useful plugin for PSTV and PSVita consoles.

Switch Rumour Follow-up: Team Xecuter shows upcoming modchip to MaxConsole News Team member which is said to be compatible with newer Switch models and Switch Lite

While the news about Team Xecuter’s rumoured hack sounds great, it must be noted that no definitive proof has yet been published so you might want to hold off swapping your original Switch unit for a Mariko (neon) unit with better battery life… for now 😉

Around two weeks ago, GaryOPA wrote a post on his website MaxConsole and on the frontpage of GBATemp that Team Xecuter had been able to hack newer Switch units (ipatched & mariko) and the Switch Lite.

However, this revelation still has no tangible proof associated with it other than the words of a Team Xecuter trusted reseller so its credibility is in a grey-area even though a GBATemp administrator received confirmation from SX Team that their hack is indeed real.

Now, more information has been made available (GBATemp/MaxConsoles) regarding this relevation/rumour but this time it’s from MaxConsole News Team member ‘ub3r1337’ and it states that Team Xecuter’s upcoming hack comes in the form of a hardware mod with two variants being available, one for Classic units (original, ipatched and mariko) and another for the Switch Lite. Furthermore, some important points about the nature of the hardware mod were revealed which include:

• The hardware mod needs to be installed on the Switch’s motherboard and indications are showing that some degree of soldering will be required.
  

  Some websites like DG Chips are already taking pre-orders for the upcoming hardware mod meaning that a release might not be too far off

  • However, Team Xecuter ‘held back from claiming [that] it’s fully solder-less’ meaning that the hardware mod for Classic units might allow for a solder-less installation although this is said not to be recommended
• According to ub3r1337, the Classic variant of the hardware mod is ‘probably under production and should be available soon’ meaning that Team Xecuter might come up with an official announcement in the coming weeks
• When it comes to an ETA, Team Xecuter refused to give an estimate although GBATemp user ‘Diogo097’ contacted a TX reseller who claimed that the hardware mod should be released by January 2020
  • Some resellers including DGChips and MOD3DSCard are already taking pre-orders for the hardware mod lending a somewhat higher degree of credibility to the whole story

Like the initial revelation, it must be noted that no tangible proof of the hack or hardware mod are currently available. Unfortunately, ub3r1337 wasn’t allowed to take any pictures or videos so until now, it’s still recommended to treat this news item with caution and still view it as a RUMOUR.

PSVita News: LOLITA500 and LOLITA444 plugins released

Moving away from exciting rumours, the PlayStation Vita scene received something tangible, in the form of two kernel plugins, which can be used right here and now. These two overclocking-related kernel plugins, by Team CBPS member teakhanirons, are called LOLITA500 and LOLITA444 and they aim to make overclocking much the PSVita and PSTV much easier.

LOLITA500 allows you to fully unleash your PSVita’s power provided you don’t care too much about battery life 😉

Thanks to these plugins, one needn’t mess around with the menus found in current overclocking solutions like LOLIcon and PSV VSH Menu which not only make the overclocking process take longer but don’t always play nice with certain games and homebrew. As per the release post, the LOLITA plugins come with the following features:

• A system-wide overclock to 444MHz (LOLITA444) or 500MHz (LOLITA500) meaning that the higher clocks are also present in the web browser, LiveArea and all games/homebrew you use
  • This is always on as the plugins have no menu system
• Less complex than full overclocking plugins which have a menu meaning that compatibility issues with Adrenaline and other software are fixed
• The higher clock speeds are hooked meaning that even if games try to set the clock themselves, the clock speeds will stay maxed out
• Power limits are disabled so you can have full brightness and enabled Wi-Fi all the time

It must be noted that having a 444/500MHz overclock all the time on your PSVita will lead to higher battery temperatures thus potentially increasing the rate of your battery’s degradation. As a result, it’s recommended not to use these plugins continuously for hours with everything maxed out if you’re using a PSVita. On the other hand, if you’re a PSTV user, it’s probable that your console will be just fine even if you run LOLITA500 provided your console has adequate ventilation.

To grab the plugins, follow this link and put the SKPRX’s path in the *KERNEL section of your taiHEN config.txt

Conclusion

Other than the two overclocking plugins mentioned above, the PSVita also received Activate.VPK 1.2 which is useful for test/devkit owners and vitaVoyager 0.6 for regular users which fixes dynarec issues with this Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Holomatch port. On a completely unrelated note, Google published their lineup of 12 launch games to be available on Stadia when it launches next week and a new trailer for the Sonic movie has been released which greatly improves Sonic’s model according to popular opinion.

Featured images uses content from MaxConsole.